Twelve Years Ago I went into labor

And I didn’t even know I had.

It was a Wednesday and my last day at Del Rey before I was on maternity leave due to some concerns about my health and the baby’s health.

I had brought home a couple of projects I was working on in hopes of getting them done before the baby arrived.

Baby had other ideas.

I went to my doctor that evening who was giving me an outline of the next couple of weeks and then stopped suddenly.

One doesn’t like it when one’s doctor is examining you and stops suddenly. All kinds of things went quickly through my head.

He looked up at me and informed me that I was in labor and would be having this child sooner rather than later.

I had no idea. My back hurt and I had what I thought were just more Braxton-hicks contractions which I had been having off and on for a number of weeks.

I remember that I was glad I didn’t have to ride the train into the city for a while because it was getting more uncomfortable every day. Much more that afternoon.

I didn’t need really to go to the hospital yet so we went home. The young lady who was going to stay with Ariel until Peter got back came over.

And I sent Peter off to bowl in his bowling league which surprised the guys that his wife insisted he go bowling rather than be with her. They still comment on it to this day. I knew if I called he would come home immediately. We were playing the sit and wait game for the contractions to be closer together. Also we were going to try to wait until after midnight so we wouldn’t get charged for an extra day in the hospital which worked out just fine.

Peter made it through two games before he told his team that he had to get home which both teams understood and he came home.

As we were driving to the north shore to St. Catherine’s, it started to sleet and then snow. We got there and got situated and started waiting for the arrival of our daughter.

I am grateful that the snow held off until we were at the hospital.